Convicted Child Killer Appeals; Says 911 Dispatcher Gave Him Bad CPR Instructions

Here's an interesting defense: Quintin Gray Sr., a St. Louis man found guilty in 2009 of killing his girlfriend's three-year-old daughter, is appealing his conviction on the grounds that the 911 dispatcher gave him faulty information.

On the morning of February 25, 2008, Gray called police to say that young Miyannah Turner had stopped breathing. He claimed she accidentally hit her head on the bathtub.

Miyannah's brother told police another story. He said Gray punched the toddler after she wet the bed. A jury convicted Gray of second-degree murder and he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In his appeal, Gray argues that the 911 dispatcher should share the blame.

He claims the dispatcher gave him instructions to use the palm of his hands to push down on the child's chest during CPR. But as anyone who's taken a CPR class knows, you're supposed to use just your middle and ring fingers to try to resuscitate a small child.

Gray's public defender, Tim Forneris, says that because the 911 tape and a video reenactment of the CPR were not admitted in trial, he's owed a new trial. "It would have given the jurors a more complete picture of what was going on that day," Forneris tells the Post-Dispatch.